Fabric Love!

This morning my dad watched the boy and my mom took me to Patchwork Plus, an amazing quilt shop (that was featured in Better Homes and Gardens) in the Finger Lakes area just South of Syracuse.  I basically died and went straight to fabric heaven.  I have never seen so many incredible fabrics in my life!  Wow- you could drop some serious cash in that place.  My husband made me pinkie swear that I wouldn't purchase the entire store and luckily for him my frugal side kicked in and I felt bad about how much it cost a yard, so there were only 2 purchases. 
The funny thing about it is that I'm currently looking for fabrics for pillows and a hanging quilt for our playroom, so I'm looking for fun kid stuff when there are all these exquisite "adult" materials everywhere.  I feel a bit like walking into a couture shop and looking for a clearance rack.  It's still a lot of fun to oogle the merchandise though.  I got a fun words material for my pillow to match with the Cat in the Hat decal and quote that will be going up in the playroom this coming week.  The other farm animal material I just fell in love with and had to have.  I'm going to figure out a way to include it.  Nathan's love of animals is starting to rub off on me (as you will soon see in his room next week).  The most exciting part about this experience is that they are getting Dr. Seuss material in September!  I've been looking all over for it without any luck.  Looks like I know what I'm asking for from Joel for my birthday. :)

Stuetz Photos

Aren't these great?!!  This is my dad and Aunt Sherry.  My dad labeled this as "Faces only a mother could love."

This is my dad when he was baptized and joined the LDS church (17 years old)

The last picture is at my Grammy Irene's 15 year high school reunion in Grove City, Minnesota in 1958.  Doesn't she look so done up and classy?  I love it.  Those were the days.......

Old Stuff, Old Memories

Now that I have a house my parents are having me go through all of my old boxes and decide what stuff I want to keep and what needs to be thrown out.  I can't believe some of the junk I kept, but some of it just makes me smile.  All of my cumerbunds from choir and the show outfit were still in there.  My kids at school would love to see what awful ones I had.  Their's were a lot cuter, but the funny thing is that I looked at the tag and it's the same exact company.

I also found my clay mask that I actually won an award for in 6th grade.  It's the only art project that even came close to being decent, but alas after all these years its falling apart and time to part ways.

Before the days of quilting, the only thing that I did that could be considered even remotely craftsy was Latch Hook.  I used to love doing it- this was the very first one I ever did. 

One really cool thing that I found was an old wooden picture frame that had pictures taken of me the day Adam was born.  I was 16 months old and some of those pictures remind me exactly of Nathan (I had a little longer hair and that was about it)- particularly the bottom right hand corner.  I'm going to see if we can scan them in, so there's a better version of the pictures.  Fun stuff. 

Joel will be happy to know that of the 5 boxes I managed to clean it out to 2 boxes.  :)

First Hair Do

Nathan got his hair cut for the first time this morning.  He did really well.  Jeanette has been cutting my family's hair for probably about 15 years now, so it was fun to bring him to her for the 1st experience.  Graham crackers and raisins are all it took to make him sit in the chair.

                          The new and stylin' Nathan!

Twin Purple

My parents have a room that we've always called the Purple Flower Room.  It was my 2 sisters' room for many years and the comforters finally gave way, so my mom asked me to make new ones.  It was one of my projects to finish before Nathan came along last year, but I never did take pictures of them.  I made matching twin bed quilts for the room.  Here's one of them (my mom made pillows and curtains to match).  It was my first big project I ever quilted.  I had only done baby quilts before these, so I was pretty estatic about it.
You can see up close the cute white eyelet material we found for it.  I put a backing on it, so it wouldn't be see through and I really like it.

My Week Challenge

Last week was a challenge in more ways than one, but I managed to reach my goal of getting the top of my quilt completely sewn.  It's for a friend of mine that is just fun and full of life, so I wanted vibrant colors.  I usually don't use such bright colors on my quilts, but I really enjoyed putting this together.  The pattern itself isn't extremely complicated, but it seemed to take forever since I could only work on it in bits and pieces during nap times.  I added a fun multi-colored border as well, so I was happy with the way it turned out.  I'll have to wait to finish it when I get back in town, but I was happy to have pieced the entire front together before I left.

Color Quandary

One of my projects in August is to paint my kitchen and decorate it.  Every wall in our new home is white and I think the first white to go needs to be the kitchen.  It needs some personality.  My first inspiration for the room was based on my plate from Spain.  I love this plate.  I got it in this cool, little hand craft shop in Salamanca when I was living there.  Anyway, I was thinking of painting the kitchen a pale yellow and making the curtains blue since I didn't want blue walls in the kitchen and I'm not into pink kitchens either.  I don't know- it's hard to make these colors look classy.

My other problem is that I have this wall in the eating area that needs a large, beautiful painting.  I've found a bunch of paintings I love, but none of them that have this color scheme.  In fact, almost all of them are Tuscany landscapes that have earthy tones.  It's more tan, mustard yellow, and dark orange and red.  I'm toying with the idea of painting the walls gray to match the flecks in the flooring or a dark, dark red, but I don't think that goes with my light oak cabinets.   I definitely don't want burnt orange walls reminding me of the 70s or Halloween gone bad.  Oh, the quandary.  The color wheel is not my friend right now.  What do you think?

 

Day #1

One fun thing about going back to Utah is that you always get to see old friends.  I visited with my trainer from the mission and it was so much fun to see her and her kids!  I hadn't seen her in years, so it was a lot of fun to catch up and reminisce about the Spain Madrid Mission. :)

That afternoon Adam got into town- Nathan was able to meet his Uncle for the first time- We love Uncle A!  We went up to his apartment in Park city for a barbeque.  Look at the view from his porch!  It's beautiful right now.  He has a bunch of little gofers just outside that Nathan loved to watch.

He's in the process of renovating his apartment to have more of a cabin feel and so far it looks great.  I can't wait to see it when it's all finished.

It's so much fun having Aunt 'Stina around....

And of course it wouldn't be a true bachelor pad without the candle sticks on the piano for a little serenading of the ladies. 
We finished out the day with some outlet shopping since it's only a block from Adam's apartment.  Nice.